Papier-mache

Because I like it and I worked a lot in the papier-mache technique, I think I should talk a little about how I approach it. This technique is based, as the name suggests, on paper and involves obtaining a durable object that can be colored and varnished. The recipes of this technique are very varied and personalized: from pasting newspapers to making pasta using all kinds of binders. I work mainly with paper pulp in which I incorporate various compounds until it becomes a "clay" that I model in successive layers, I dry it, I finish it and I varnish it so that in the end it has the hardness of linden wood. To obtain the paper pulp, I use a binder made from cereal flour, a binder that has been used over time in various ways, even in the material with which the bricks from the Great Wall of China were glued. To get good results you need to know the properties of the materials used and how they interact so a little apprenticeship has relieved you of dissatisfaction. I used this technique for puppet heads or bibabo dolls, butaforie, commedia dell arte masks, decorative masks or works of art.